You Can't Blame the Youths

Yesterday the news hit that a 9-year-old who reportedly learned to drive courtesy of Playstation stole three cars, eluded police in a high speed chase and managed to board two flights in an attempt to get back to Dallas after his family moved. On Thursday, WFAA-Channel 8 broadcast a story about children renting porn from the library. Apparently, 8-year-old Gabby McKenzie of South Dallas had opted for a flick called Black Shampoo when she went with her family to their local South Dallas branch.

"When the family returned home from the Martin Luther King library branch in South Dallas last week, they started watching Black Shampoo, which was the movie their 8-year-old daughter Gabby checked out. The movie had sexual situations, full frontal nudity and foul language.

"I would categorize that movie as porn," Mrs. McKenzie said. "Porn should go where it belongs, and it's not in the libraries."

The 1976 movie isn't actually porn -- it was rated R -- but the tagline is, "He's bad, he's mean, he's a loving machine!" and the storyline features steamy scenes in a salon and a womanizing hairstylist who goes after mobsters with a chainsaw. Probably not the best choice for Gabby, shown on the broadast in a neatly pressed school uniform, diligently doing her homework.

It all reminds me of that old Bob Marley/Peter Tosh song off Talkin' Blues -- "You can't blame the youth (when they get bad)." What with videogames on shooting and pimping and car stealing, and all of those soft porn volumes at the local library, what do we expect when the little tikes take the car or develop a taste for skin flicks? --Megan Feldman

Patrick Williams is managing editor of the Dallas Observer and winner of a perfect attendance certificate, first grade, at Lincoln Elementary School in West Frankfort, Illinois.